Monday, December 5, 2011

Blog - Giant Casimir Effect Predicted Inside Metamaterials: They say that in a particular kind of electromagnetic space called a Rindler space, the Casimir effect is huge. The essential idea here is that the space can be designed to allow only certain wavelengths to operate. If the electromagnetic properties of the Rindler space are matched to the ambient temperature, then these kinds of thermal waves can be made to dominate the Casimir energy.

That makes the Casimir energy huge. Zhao and Miao calculate that in a lab at 300K (room temperature), the Casimir energy would be some 10^11 times bigger than the free space value...

Zhao and Miao also say that this kind of material ought to be relatively straightforward to build, layer by layer.